Latency is no handicap

I also remember being a bit offended at the time, because for me to start WoW I have to sign that I agree with:

Game Experience May Change During Online Play.

No I mean it. I put in my username, password, authenticator code & then sign triplicate forms agreeing to play under changing conditions.

Less for some

I watch videos of the best laying low the 2nd best and marvel at their pinpoint accuracy, the way they launch their spells without fear of:

Target must be in front of you

Or

Out of Range

Or even

Ability not ready

You see I live with a technical handicap. I know I have spoken about it before, but as with all handicaps, I am learning to live with it.

Back in the bad old early days of WoW I used to hate my consistent 600-800ms lag.

Then one day, things miraculously got better.

I have been living with 200ms lag while relaxing and dealing with 400ms lag during boss fights and PvP.

Life was grand and I snarled at those who whinged latency.

More for others

Lately I’m lucky to start at 450 latency, although 1500ms isn’t unusual while I sit about.

Join in anything fun and my latency starts at 1300, but is usually 2,000 through 4,000.

With this kind of lag:

Squidly heals corpses!

I can see people approaching a BG node, then see the converted node from my corpse.

I launch instant pyroblasts at people at my feet only to discover they are out of range.

The other night I got to listen to Mr. Tree’s Arena calls… 30 seconds after I died. It was like listening to a delayed telecast.

I also ran UP for my Orphan’s benefit the other day.

Now as I said, I am coming to terms with my latency. 3 buttons on my toolbar depressed is normal. Me timing and cast 3-4 fireballs before seeing the 1st leave my fingers is par for the course.

Yeah, so we were running UP and got to the gauntlet, the one with the dragon riding, whirlwinding nutter…

Lag… No problem!

Yeah, 2 achievements AND top DPS!

Storing it up and letting it rip

I went to ICC for the 1st time a couple of weeks back. My lag was as bad as it has ever been.

On one occasion (not the only occasion with bad lag, but the most memorable), I got out 4 “living bomb” rotations, with Scorch and Fireballs in between, all timed by reflex.

The whole time my button bar was lit up.

The whole time Gnomeaggedon, the boss, the raid didn’t move a milimetre.

Time stood still…

Were you around when they introduced Icy Veins?

Do you remember the groans of ecstasy from the Mages as they watched all the charges of their Arcane Missiles shoot out of their hands at once?

Doesn’t happen often for a Fire Mage…but…

Watching 4 Living Bombs, 2 Scorches and 12+ Fireballs (and a few guesstimated Pyroblasts) pop in one go is… well, things happened in my pants that I’m not going to share with you.

Unfortunately, the last thing that happened when time caught up was I was dead.

Arena of Time

My Arena rating is pretty crap…

I think it’s fair to assume I am pretty crap at Arenas.. but then I do sometimes wonder how much of that is due to my lag. 2 of our 3 man team are from Oz, we are usually the first to die. The 3rd member is from the US, near some little town called Washington. His latency is 80.. so 1/5th of my lowest latency.

No wonder he’s usually the last one standing, the one with the majority of the kills.. don’t get me wrong, he’s good.. I just wonder sometimes how good I would be if my opponent was still where I think he is when I start casting.

The moral of this story…

I really need to get my lag fixed, because then I will be unstoppable!

Making Quick Werk of it.

On a completely different subject..

Did you ever get Patchwerk down in time for the achievement?

Patchwerk is our weekly on Aman’Thul and as soon as I logged on, I got asked to come along… on Squidly.

I was spewing, because I recall never coming close with Gnomeaggedon back in the day.

An hour or so later, I was back with Gnome… and he got it too.

They need to change the achievement now, so you have to kill him so slowly that he enrages… it’s just too easy!

On our old computers the issue was having the settings for graphics turned WAY down to help with the speed at which things ran and try to reduce the lagging. Therefore I would often miss poisons on the ground etc as my graphics were down so low they wouldn’t show well or maybe not at all hehe.

Now I have my graphics on BUST…unbelievable difference. Now if I die from poisons its just because I’m a dope and didn’t move quick enough:) Yes, sometimes I’m still a dope.

^^^^^
Arcane mage, satellite internet and 1500 latency almost all the time…. making bets on wether or not my arcane missiles are actually going to fire before the proc runs out is what I spend most of the time doing…. I feel your pain.

Thanks for that, I use it and have for years, but there may be others out there that don’t know about it.

I just put it down to living in the “Lucky Country”. That luck doesn’t extend to internet speeds, nor does it extend to a) Blizzard putting servers closer to home or b) Someone adding extra cables out of Australia, or c) moving Australia closer to the servers.